August 25th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
I was sitting at a business luncheon the other day and we were all telling each other at the table what we did for a living and I mentioned that I was a sales trainer with a focus on appointment setting. The young woman sitting next to me was in sales and she asked me for a ‘free’ tip.
After passing on the old line of “Don’t bet on the horses”, I asked her what objection she heard most often when calling for an appointment. (We call them Conditioned Responses because people generally use the same one all the time to get us pesky sales people off the phone.) She told me it was, “I don’t have time to talk right now”. I asked her how she handled that and she said that she politely asked what would be a good time for her to call back.
I told her before I would give her my approach; I wanted to know why she thought the person was being honest with her and that they really didn’t have time to talk. It stopped her dead in her tracks. She told me she never thought about it that way, so I asked her what she said when people cold called her. Was she always honest? She laughed and said she always said the same thing; “I’m in good shape on (whatever they were selling).”
“Always?” I asked.
“Pretty much” she answered.
“So what makes you believe everyone else doesn’t use their own favorite Conditioned Response just like you do?” Mine is the too busy to talk one she hears most often as well, by the way.
So here’s how I told her to handle it next time:
- “Hey, I totally understand. As a matter of fact the only reason I called was to set an appointment. How is Tuesday at 2:00?” (Assuming that’s what you asked for the first time.) You’ll more than likely hear them ask you what you were calling about again because they really weren’t listening any more once they realized it was a sales call. They were trying to figure out which of their old stand by excuses would work the best on you – proving my point that it was a conditioned or knee jerk response.
- Don’t believe it’s true until they tell you a second time – then it’s okay to ask when would be a good time to call back and take your chances. If you can though, pin them down to a specific day and time and call back at that time
Next week I’ll share with you how to handle the other flavor of ‘Too Busy’ – when they are tied up for some period of time, not just at the moment you called.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 1
August 18th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
How can we subtly reconfirm the value of the meeting in a confirmation email?
Last week we addressed reducing the chance of being stood up after setting an Initial Appointment. One of the tips to reduce that risk we discussed was sending an email confirmation of the Initial Appointment along with three things:
1. The key reason for the meeting;
2. Our contact information in case the Target legitimately needs to reschedule, and;
3. A third party testimonial or credibility piece.
This week, I’m going to explore some ideas for that third party testimonial.
First let me address what not to send as we see this tendency all the time. Do not send a data sheet describing the solution. Why? Two reasons:
1. The Target most likely doesn’t believe they are ‘in the market’ yet, so we actually don’t want them to read it without us there. Doing so without us there to discus may very well lead to the decision that they don’t need to meet with us because they now have all the information they need, and;
2. They won’t read it most likely anyway.
Instead, we like to employ one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion, the Principle of Authority and Credibility (see my article published in March of 2007). Send something that was published by someone else (or at least said by someone else) that establishes our credibility and authority as an expert.
Cialdini believes (and so do I) that once in front of the Target, it comes across as braggadocios to ‘toot our own horn’ as the old expression goes. But it is actually appropriate to do so before we arrive.
So what are some examples? Industry awards, articles about us, and testimonials from customers are some great examples.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 1
August 11th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Ever set an Initial Appointment on a cold call and then worried that the Target might not show? Ever actually been stood up?
Sell long enough and we all get stood up every once and a while after we’ve set an Initial Appointment. The cost of that in face-to-face selling can be very high, particularly when we’ve not got additional appointments in the area adjacent to the one we’re being stood up on. It’s one of the reasons we recommend sending a confirmation email after setting an appointment (see March 8, 2008 blog), as legitimate reasons for postponement do come up.
Yet there are some appointment making methodologies that suggest we should ‘just get the appointment’ and don’t worry about whether the Target is yet convinced of our value. We’ll take care of that once we get there is the thought. The problem with that mentality is that if the Target isn’t convinced that there is value in the investment of their time to see us, yet our slick techniques get them to agree to see us, buyer’s remorse sets in quickly after the Initial Appointment is set.
The Formula™ is built to reduce the risk of being stood up by providing a platform for the Target to ‘buy’ the value for the appointment on their own terms.
Here are three tips to reduce the risk of that happening.
1. Ask a good Bridge Question™ (see November 19, 2008 blog for definition) that gets the Target into a short, but open minded conversation which provides us with that platform to sell our value and qualify a bit.
2. When appropriate, and when the time comes to actually set the appointment, ask the question, “Do you have your calendar handy?” This technique takes advantage of one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s six principals of persuasion, Commitment and Consistency. (For a deeper explanation of this principle see my article published in April of 2007.)
3. If we’ve been able to get into that discussion that convinces the Target to ‘buy’ the meeting, we encourage asking for an email address to send a confirmation of the Initial Appointment. In that email, we can reiterate the key reason for the meeting, provide a third party testimonial of us or our solution if we’ve got any, and provide our contact information in case the meeting needs to be moved.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 1
August 4th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
In today’s world, a few decision makers respond better to email than to voicemail, but how do we figure out which ones?
First things first; in most selling environments, email does not work very well to set an actual Initial Appointment unless we’ve already had a conversation or gotten into a game of phone tag with our Target (see February 10, 2010 blog).
It can, however, be occasionally effective to set up an Initial Appointment or to set up the appointment setting call itself when our Target prefers written communication. Because of this, we encourage using automatically generated email along with the voicemails we leave. (We also cover this in the aforementioned blog.)
For most of us though, we either don’t have automation that supports the efficient sending of email (see www.contactscience.com for the best solution for that), or don’t have the email address to begin with. So here’s a good way to find out whether our Target responds better to email communications.
This tip will work best with decision makers that have administrative assistants. If we haven’t already engaged with the Target’s administrative assistant, it’s time. When we determine to do this is basically a personal style decision, but one recommendation would be upon the second cycle of attempts. In other words, I went through my first set of attempts leaving voicemails which weren’t returned and put the Target aside for a predetermined period of time. The second time the name pops up in my system; I might try to find the administrative assistant on the second or third attempt in this cycle if I once again am not getting a return call.
When I do try to find the admin, I’ll simply ask him/her what is the best way to have a five minute conversation with the Target. (See Gatekeeper blog for ideas on how to engage the admin.)
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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